


Helrune

by Lucibell



Category: Beowulf (Poem), 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, F/M, Gothic, Gothic legends, M/M, Mages, Monster Hunters, Multi, Old English legends, Threesome - F/M/M, fantasy!au, old english
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:41:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23329414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucibell/pseuds/Lucibell
Summary: They call herhelrune, and according to the legends she is the last of her kind. Following in the footsteps of the great Beowulf, Katuski intends to make a name for himself by tracking her down and taking her out. Over the course of his journey, however, Katsuki discovers that what he thought he knew about thehelrunemight not line up with the woman he finds.--A Fantasy!AU derived from cognate-language research inBeowulfstudies. Rating may change.
Relationships: Bakugou Katsuki/Midoriya Izuku, Bakugou Katsuki/Midoriya Izuku/Uraraka Ochako, Bakugou Katsuki/Uraraka Ochako, Midoriya Izuku/Uraraka Ochako
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	Helrune

Katsuki stares at the firelight as it flickers in the darkness, warding off the shadows for a small radius before fading into the blackness of the night. The moor on every side rustles in the wind, and the distant gurgles of unknown creatures tickle his ears in echo, long distant from the moments they were uttered, producing the effect that he hears them in real time, when in fact they could easily be closer or further than they sound. He sniffs, drawing his fur-lined cloak tighter around him as he leans back against the ground, staring up at the sky. Thick clouds drift over the moonlight, a waning crescent that barely illuminates his camp any more than the fire he’s lit. He’s not far from the edge of the moor, having just crossed the border of the closest village, but despite being the type of man who dislikes public gatherings and crowds of any kind, he find himself acutely aware of how alone they are, of how vast the expanse of sky above him and the moor around him are.

The first frosts haven’t happened yet, but he feels the bite in the air and knows they’re not far off. He looks over at Izuku, rolled up in his own cloak close to the fire across from him, and thinks briefly that he might not mind so much having him along for the journey, even if at first he’d been vehemently against the idea. Gaining fame for killing the last known _helrune_ meant nothing if he died alone on the journey because of something a companion could have staved off. Katsuki and Izuku weren’t particularly… _fond_ of each other by any means, but they’d trained together as children, and were close despite frequent antagonism between them. Moreover, Katsuki reasoned, there were no other warriors in their retinue that were as skilled as he and Izuku, and even he couldn’t deny their complementary strengths: his in tracking, stealth, and attacking unheard and unseen, and Izuku’s in pure power and strategy. As much as Katsuki wanted to gain the glory of this hunt for himself, he knows that he isn’t—and never could be—the famed Beowulf, no matter how many times Lord Toshinori had assured him he had the temperament—the _mod_ —of the legendary warrior-king.

He tilts his head back up to the sky, trying to imagine what she looked like, this _helrune_. The stories of Grendel’s mother painted her as both hideous and ghastly, or temptingly beautiful, depending on the bard who told the story. Katsuki figures she’s somewhere in the middle—beautiful enough to tempt the evil spirits to procreation but horrid enough to motivate any reasonable man to stay away. He lets his eyes drift closed, concentrating on the weight of his chain mail against his body, the sounds of the fire and distant creatures, eventually falling into a fitful sleep filled with screeching monsters, seductive women, and the inexplicable image of Izuku, naked and bound and sweating.

He snaps awake just as his dream version of Izuku calls out and finds his real-life companion standing over him. “Get up,” he says gruffly. “Time to get moving.”

As Katsuki bundles his things, Izuku passes him a hard chunk of bread and some cheese. He takes them with a grunt and they set off, pushing further into the moor and leaving the last village behind them. If the rumors they’ve tracked down are true, it’ll take three days to get to the mere, a swampy wasteland rumored to be more treacherous than the moor itself. They walk silently as they eat, Katsuki tracking his eyes across the horizon on the lookout for predators. Rumors have it that these wilds are dangerous, crawling with various beasties of horrendously vague description. After finishing his breakfast, he draws an arrow from the quiver at his hip and carries it loosely in hand with his strung bow. Izuku walks with a hand on his hip, close to the bandolier of daggers slung across it. Katsuki sometimes moves ahead of him, sometimes doubles back, while Izuku walks in a more-or-less straight line. He watches every side, keeping Izuku either in his sights or within earshot.

Close to dusk, a low rumble emanates from their distant left where a patch of shrubs rustles in the wind. He motions Izuku forward, moving quietly towards the sound and nocking his arrow. Katsuki bends at the knees, slightly crouching and rolling his feet to minimize the sound of his footsteps—which won’t matter, he knows, if whatever is lurking in those bushes can see him. He puts a little tension on the bowstring, holding the weapon out to the side. He pauses as the bushes rustle again, another low growl following, and tilts his head in Izuku’s direction. The rustling and growling grow more insistent, so Katsuki begins taking slow steps back, drawing the bow up to his cheek and aiming low to the ground.

He doesn’t have to think when the thing bursts from the bushes, loosing the arrow at the same time that he hears a dagger whistle through the air past his head. The arrow lodges in the creature’s throat and Izuku’s dagger pierces its ankle with such force that it pulls the creature back down and pins its leg to the ground. It twitches twice before falling still.

Katsuki shoulders his bow as Izuku approaches, yanking out his arrow and tugging hard on the dagger to hand it back to Izuku.

“What is it?” Izuku asks as he takes the dagger from Katsuki’s hand. Katsuki bends closer.

“Not sure,” he says. “Looks feline, but I’ve never seen a cat that wasn’t covered in fur.” He rolls it over and takes a deep breath in. “Izuku,” he says, leaning back as Izuku leans forward and scanning the horizon around them, turning both ways to look behind them.

Izuku curses. Leaning back and standing to his full height. “It’s young,” he says quietly, bringing a hand to his chin, his eyes glossed over in a manner that is the exact reason that Katsuki is the tracker and he isn’t. “You think the mother’s nearby?”

Katsuki tugs a length of fiber from his belt, looping it quickly and securely around the griffin’s feet and standing, taking the corpse with him. “We’d be better to assume she is and keep moving. She’ll come looking by tomorrow morning at the latest, and we should roast the meat before she catches the scent of it.”

Izuku jerks out of his contemplation. “How long will that take?”

Katsuki shrugs, moving away from the bushes and back to their planned route. “Shortly after dark when the baby doesn’t make it back to the nest would be my guess,” he grunts.

Izuku trots to catch up to Katsuki’s pace. “We won’t get far in that time.”

Katsuki shakes his head. “No, but we can get far enough and start a fire. Once it starts roasting, the less likely it is she’ll be able to find us. Just make sure you don’t get too close to the hide—that scent rubs off on you and she could track us for days.”

Izuku audibly swallows, making his own scan of the horizon. “Right,” he says.

They walk briskly in silence as darkness closes in around them, Katsuki aiming them for a copse of trees in the middle of the moor several leagues away from where they’d killed the griffin. Once they reach the center of the copse, Katsuki drops his pack, bow, and quiver and carries the griffin a little ways off, drawing a hunting knife from his boot.

“Izuku,” he calls, “we need two piles of firewood. One in the center of camp and one over here.”

He can feel Izuku snap to attention behind him as he quickly unties the griffin and presses its limbs out. In the time between killing it and making camp the creature’s limbs have stiffened, and Katsuki ignores the pops and cracks they make as he stretches them open. As Izuku piles firewood to his left, he quickly cuts down the center of the griffin’s stomach.

“It’s ready,” Izuku says. “I can start the other one on my own. I’ll make a spit for the meat.”

As he moves away, Katsuki reaches over to the woodpile without looking and snaps his fingers. A spark pops from his hand onto the kindling, and the whole pile catches fire. He skins the griffin and severs the wing joints, tossing the hide and wings onto the fire. He would normally try to preserve the hide and other offal, but without proper tanning materials and with an anxious mother griffin potentially on their trail, burning whatever he and Izuku won’t be able to eat is his only option. He can only hope that the effects of the fire change the scent of the corpse enough to throw a tracking mother off their trail.

Once he’s cleaned the animal and passed the edible meat to Izuku, he piles the remains on the other fire. He returns to the center of the copse, staring down at the blood on his hands. He’d done a decent job of keeping his clothing clean, but there was no way he could avoid getting the griffin’s scent all over his hands. Izuku looks up at him as he approaches, and inclines his head to the moor outside the copse.

“I saw a small peat deposit about two fathoms away on our way in.”

Katsuki nods quickly and moves off in the direction Izuku indicated, holding his hands away from himself and hoping that there’s mud where the peat is. When he reaches the deposit he breathes a sigh of relief. It isn’t much, but there is a small puddle of water that he uses to rinse the blood off his hands, scouring them with peat and pulling up two pieces of it to take back to camp. When he returns, he tosses one piece of peat onto the fire burning the griffin’s offal and sets the other next to their campfire.

He rubs the rest of the peat on his hands over his face and neck, and holds his hands over the fire until they dry. When he looks up he finds Izuku staring at him, an unreadable expression on his face. Katsuki snarls.

“Shut up,” he says.

Izuku clears his throat, reaching out to rotate the spit. “I didn’t say anything,” he says.

Katsuki sits across from him. “Yet.”

Izuku sighs, and looks out at the moor beyond the trees as Katsuku brushes some of the dried peat from his hands with a bunch of fresh moss. “How much longer do you think until we reach the mere?” he asks.

Katsuki drops the moss and leans back on his hands. “Another day and a half, probably. We made good time after finding that beastie.” He inclines his chin to the meat over the fire.

“Do you really think she lives in a bower?”

Katsuki tilts his head, meeting Izuku’s green eyes over the fire, ignoring a stray thought about the way they glow in the darkness. “I doubt it,” Katsuki says quietly. “The stories about _helrune_ don’t seem to suggest that they’re incline to paradisiacal dwellings.” He snorts. “She probably lives below the mere, just like Grendel’s mother. Hell—she probably just moved in after Beowulf killed the beast, leaving the corpse to rot in the middle of the floor.”

Izuku doesn’t smile, but the corner of his lips does tug up a hair. Aside from communicating about the food and settling in for the night, they don’t talk anymore, and Katsuki feels a crawling sensation across the back of his neck and shoulders, as if he’s said something wrong. Frustrated that he can’t figure it out, he rolls with his back to the glowing coals—and to Izuku—and drifts off into a fretful sleep, the impressions of fear and frustration and the sight of griffin’s claws dripping with blood searing themselves against his eyelids.

**Author's Note:**

> The term _*helrune_ in Old English is speculated to be cognate with _*haljrunne_ in Gothic, and potentially related to _magas mulieres_ ("mage women") or _magnas mulieres_ ("great/giant women") in Latin. The term is used in ll. 159-163 of _Beowulf_ to describe the "class" of women to which Grendel's mother belongs: men ne cunnon // hwyder _helrunan_ / hwyrftum scri[th]a[th] (men do not know where _helrunan_ move on their circuitous paths).
> 
> This class of women is part of a larger and broader corpus of myths that suggest that giants and various other monster types (trolls, ogres, etc.) come from the union of "bad spirits" or "demons" and human women, and that these women are knowledgeable in particular types of magic (sometimes suggested to be knowledge gained in _hel_ , or the realm of the dead, itself). These unions are ambiguously consensual (which means that they very likely involve rape), but the focus of this story is on the myth of the _helrune_ and her position on the borders and margins of "civilized" society.
> 
> Welcome to the creative application of the things I study. Welcome to _hel_.


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